Family rescued after falling tree crushes home during Sandy

WEST CALN — A tree weighing about 6,500 pounds and standing more than 75 feet tall came crashing down late Monday night onto a modular home along the 100 block of Cambridge Road.

A family of three, including a 4-year-old girl, escaped serious injury as the powerful winds from superstorm Sandy brought down the tree onto the family’s home.

According to West Caln Police Chief Curt Martinez, police and firefighters were dispatched shorty after 10 p.m. for a report of people trapped inside the house.

Within minutes, Martinez arrived, kicked in the front door and found a 23-year-old female sitting on a couch and trapped under a piece of roof and the tree. Martinez said the woman was conscious and alert.

Martinez then moved further into the home and found the woman’s 24-year-old husband and their young daughter uninjured. Martinez removed the girl from the home and gave her to another responding police officer, who in turn took her to a warm police car as firefighters arrived to free her mom.

Members of Wagontown and Martin’s Corner fire companies freed the woman trapped beneath the tree. Her husband and the child accompanied her in a Westwood ambulance to Brandywine Hospital, where she was treated for leg and abdominal injuries.

Two dogs in the home also escaped injury, but Martinez said Kitty, the family’s cat, was still missing Tuesday.

The family had moved into the home within the past few months.

Vernon May Landscaping and Tree Service on Tuesday afternoon removed the tree that had essentially split the home in two.